The Founding Fathers were virtually unanimous in their strong opposition to war as a policy. Few were more adamant about this than James Madison.

]]>26693West Virginia Bill Would Block Unconstitutional National Guard Deploymentshttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2016/01/west-virginia-bill-would-block-unconstitutional-national-guard-deployments/
Tue, 26 Jan 2016 00:23:13 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=24854CHARLESTON, W.V. (Jan. 25, 2016) – A bill introduced in the West Virginia House of Delegates this month would block unconstitutional foreign deployments of the state’s national guard troops, effectively restoring the Founders’ framework for state-federal balance on the Guard.

House Bill 2168 (HB2168), the Defend the Guard Act, was introduced by Del. Pat McGeehan (R-Hancock), a former Air Force intelligence officer who did tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East. It was cosponsored by ten other delegates. If passed, the bill would block the federal government from deploying West Virginia Guard troops overseas unless there is a declaration of war from Congress, as required by the Constitution.

“With Sen. McConnell working to give the President nearly unlimited war powers, this bill couldn’t come at a more important time,” said Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center. “This bill would ensure that West Virginia’s Guard troops are not abused by unconstitutional deployments.”

BACKGROUND

Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 make up the “militia clauses” of the Constitution. Clause 16 authorizes Congress to “provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia.” In the Dick Act of 1903, Congress organized the militia into today’s National Guard, limiting the part of the militia that could be called into federal service rather than the entire body of people. Thus, today’s National Guard is governed by the “militia clauses” of the Constitution, and this view is confirmed by the National Guard itself.

Clause 15 delegates to the Congress the power to provide for “calling forth the militia” in three situations only: 1) to execute the laws of the union, 2) to suppress insurrections, and 3) to repel invasions.

During state ratifying conventions, proponents of the Constitution, including James Madison and Edmund Randolph, repeatedly assured the people that this power to call forth the militia into federal service would be limited to those very specific situations, and not for general purposes, like helping victims of a disease outbreak or engaging in “kinetic military actions.”

“Defending one side or the other in a Middle East civil war doesn’t qualify as ‘repelling an invasion,’” said Maharrey, “The Founders didn’t trust presidents on war, and one way they insisted on balancing that power was by keeping a strong military force at home, in the states.”

Guard troops have played significant roles in all modern overseas conflicts, with over 650,000 deployed since 2001. More specifically, West Virginia National Guard troops have participated in missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo and elsewhere.

Since none of these missions have been accompanied by a Constitutional declaration of war, the Defend the Guard Act would have prohibited the deployments. Such declarations have only happened five times in U.S. history, with the last being in World War II.

RETURNING TO THE CONSTITUTION

It is this limited Constitutional structure that advocates of the Defend the Guard Act seek to restore. That is, use of the Guard for the three expressly-delegated purposes in the Constitution, and at other times to remain where the Guard belongs, at home, supporting and protecting their home state.

“For decades, the power of war has long been abused by this supreme executive, and unfortunately our men and women in uniform have been sent off into harm’s way over and over,” said McGeehan. “If the U.S. Congress is unwilling to reclaim its constitutional obligation, then the states themselves must act to correct the erosion of constitutional law.”

Maharrey agreed. “While getting this bill passed isn’t going to be easy, it certainly is, as Daniel Webster once noted, one of the reasons state governments even exist.”

Referenced by Maharrey was an 1814 speech on the floor of Congress where Webster urged similar actions to McGeehan’s Defend the Guard Act. He said, “The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State governments to protect their own authority over their own militia, and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State governments exist.”

NEXT UP

HB2168 has been assigned to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where it will need to pass by a majority vote to move forward. West Virginia residents are urged to call all members of the committee and request a YES vote on HB2168 (contact info here)

]]>24854How to Honor Veterans? Never Wage Another Unconstitutional War.http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/11/how-to-honor-veterans-never-wage-another-unconstitutional-war/
Tue, 11 Nov 2014 18:00:57 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=21166How do you honor the veterans and respect the military?

NEVER. EVER. EVER again allow the feds to send the military to risk their lives in an unconstitutional war.

EVER.

“Targeted strikes” “kinetic action” or “enforcing UN treaties” are all examples of wars the US has waged without the Constitutionally-required declaration of war.

]]>21166On the Constitution and War: The Left and Right are Both Hypocriteshttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/09/on-the-constitution-and-war-the-left-and-right-are-both-hypocrites/
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 20:03:28 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=20936“If George W. Bush were launching wars with Congress out of town, the White House lawn would be flooded with protesters.”
-Longtime progressive activist, David Swanson﻿

This speaks volumes of two things:

1. The anti-war left was overwhelmingly filled with hypocrites, only opposed to a politician and not war.

2. For all the vitriol the pro-constitution right throws at Obama for unilateral actions (or lack thereof) they are just as hypocritical when it comes to war.

]]>20936The Constitution and Just Warhttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/09/the-constitution-and-just-war/
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 19:02:24 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=20804As President Obama authorizes US airstrikes in Iraq and future strikes anticipated for Syria, it’s important to first ask whether or not the Constitution is being followed.

The invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan, and drone strikes in multiple other countries has increased terrorism through blowback. Destabilized areas have become a hot bed for violent extremism. Using circular logic, Congress and the Executive Branch all have determined that they should fight the newest terrorist group, the Islamic State (IS), with bombs. The Islamic State was created by US intervention and funneling of weapons to this group to battle other enemies. Then they became a threat to US “interests.” Therefore more intervention is needed, and the war drums keep beating.

The strategy to combat the Islamic State is foggy. After sending in hundreds of advisors to secure the Green Zone, and some random airstrikes in the Kurdistan region, and sending in more advisors, the US government doesn’t seem to have a clear-cut game plan. However, even with the lack of plan what constitutes a war in the constitutional sense?

Founding-Era dictionaries and other sources, both legal and lay, tell us that when the Constitution was approved, “war” consisted of any hostilities initiated by a sovereign over opposition. A very typical dictionary definition was, “the exercise of violence under sovereign command against such as oppose.” (Barlow, 1772-73). I have found no suggestion in any contemporaneous source that operations of the kind the U.S. is conducting were anything but “war.”

The Founders choose the Legislative body to declare war, instead of the president. This is not a mere formality, they intentionally limited the declaration of war to Congress for reasons two-fold: they feared a tyrannical executive branch and wanted the voice of the people to judge the reasons for going to war.

The Founders’ favorite authority on international law, Vattel, divided wars into three principal categories: defensive wars, offensive just wars, and offensive unjust wars. A nation fought a defensive war when it responded to an invasion. It fought a just offensive war when it responded to an infringement of its rights short of invasion. It fought an unjust offensive war if it attacked another country even though that other country had not infringed its rights. Examples of unjust offensive wars were those fought for conquest or to limit an innocent neighbor’s power.

Whether it be a ground troop invasions, special forces night raids, or bombing areas to deny the Islamic State access to certain areas, it is a war. So, to restate, if a war was not a just one, even if it were constitutionally declared by congress, that would be “defective” under the law.

According to Murray Rothbard in “Just War”, “A defensive war did not require a declaration. A just offensive war did require one, although it might be called something other than “declaration of war.” The declaration triggered certain consequences under international law, but Vattel says its principal purpose was to give the other country a last chance to correct the injury it was inflicting. Because unjust wars were those launched by a country that had not suffered legal injury, it follows that “declarations of war” issued by an aggressor were at least partially defective.

Murray Rothbard said, in the history of the United States, only two just wars have been declared.

To be specific, the two just wars in American history were the American Revolution, and the War for Southern Independence…Specifically, the classical international lawyers developed two ideas, which they were broadly successful in getting nations to adopt:

(1) above all, don’t target civilians. If you must fight, let the rulers and their loyal or hired retainers slug it out, but keep civilians on both sides out of it, as much as possible. The growth of democracy, the identification of citizens with the State, conscription, and the idea of a “nation in arms,” all whittled away this excellent tenet of international law.

(2) Preserve the rights of neutral states and nations.”

Rothbard Continued in his piece,

“In the modern corruption of international law that has prevailed since 1914, “neutrality” has been treated as somehow deeply immoral. Nowadays, if countries A and B get into a fight, it becomes every nation’s moral obligation to figure out, quickly, which country is the “bad guy,” and then if, say, A is condemned as the bad guy, to rush in and pummel A in defense of the alleged good guy B.

The modern-day perception of war changed with Woodrow Wilson,

In modern international law, where “bad-guy” nations must be identified quickly and then fought by all, there are two rationales for such world-wide action, both developed by Woodrow Wilson, whose foreign policy and vision of international affairs has been adopted by every President since. The first is “collective security against aggression.” The notion is that every war, no matter what, must have one “aggressor” and one or more “victims,” so that naming the aggressor becomes a prelude to a defense of “heroic little” victims.

The second Wilsonian excuse for perpetual war, particularly relevant to the “Civil War,” is even more Utopian: the idea that it is the moral obligation of America and of all other nations to impose “democracy” and “human rights” throughout the globe. In short, in a world where “democracy” is generally meaningless, and “human rights” of any genuine sort virtually non-existent, that we are obligated to take up the sword and wage a perpetual war to force Utopia on the entire world by guns, tanks, and bombs.

The executive branch does not legitimately have the constitutional power to pick bad guys and aggress, nor does it have a moral obligation to try to squelch unrest in other countries. The power to declare an aggressive war resides in the congress. The founders never intended that power to reside in the hands of a single person. In fact, they feared it. Congress was meant to deliberate and debate before rashly sending American into battle.

The first step to following the Constitution is to stop accepting the excuses for unjust wars. If we cannot break through this first hurdle, we may never go back to constitutional reasons for declaring and launching wars.

“The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State governments to protect their own authority over their own militia, and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State governments exist.” – Daniel Webster, 1814 speech to Congress

Over 450 troops from the New Jersey National Guard will deploy to Qatar, according to a report from NJ.com and the Associated Press earlier this week, a move that nearly three fourths of participants in an NJ101.5 poll oppose. General opinion points to the Qatar deployment as a move toward eventual deployment to Iraq. Apparently the “Peace President,” Barack Obama, was against the war in Iraq before he was for it.

In addition to National Guard units being deployed in neighboring countries, the Obama administration also has plans to send 275 troops for “non-combat” action to Baghdad to help secure the US embassy and train Iraqi security against the insurgency. Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed the possibility of using manned and unmanned drones to support the Iraqi government, and in addition to the USS George W. Bush (because it’s his fault), the USS Costa Verde has entered the Gulf carrying 550 Marines. The president has insisted the US government will not be sending ground troops into combat, but the absence of ground troops in combat has not led to an end of the interventionism that has defined US foreign policy for nearly three quarters of a century.

Meanwhile, our legislature and governor in Trenton have stood by and done nothing to prevent this. While much of the nullification movement’s attention in the past few years has focused on nullifying ObamaCare,cannabis, the NSA and gun laws, just because George W. Bush has not occupied the White House for over five years does not mean our troops are not still being subject to unconstitutional deployments worldwide.

During the Bush years, the Tenth Amendment Center introduced Defend the Guard model legislation. The act would require the governor of the state to withhold or withdraw approval of the state’s National Guard to federal control “in the absence of an explicit authorization adopted by the Federal Government in pursuance of the powers delegated to the Federal Government in Article I, Section 8, Clause 15 of the U.S. Constitution.” Recent events have shown New Jersey certainly has a vested interest in passing this legislation.

To the people who participated in the NJ101.5 poll, to people who have read about these pending deployments and oppose it, to the people forward thinking enough to think several presidents and congresses in advance and wanting to limit their powers ahead of time, now would be a good time to contact your state legislators.

Tell your officials in the Assembly and Senate to introduce Defend the Guard legislation. If, by the time you do, another legislator has beaten them to it, tell yours to sign on as a cosponsor. There is a lot of talk about supporting the troops. If you truly do so, then support legislation that will support their oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.

]]>http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/06/using-state-nullification-to-stop-deployments-to-qatar/feed/020443War: The Worst Enemy of Limited, Constitutional Governmenthttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/06/war-the-worst-enemy-of-limited-constitutional-government/
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/06/war-the-worst-enemy-of-limited-constitutional-government/#respondTue, 10 Jun 2014 15:07:55 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=20298Since the tea party burst onto the scene, conservatives have talked a great limited government game and rejected much of the anti-Constitutional rhetoric of the Bush years with the exception of one crucial issue: war.

There is a monumental disconnect between the military and the rest of the federal government within the conservative mind. They readily admit and can explain with acuity the problems of centralized power on issues ranging from guns to education to the economy to the environment and so on. However, government power suddenly becomes sacrosanct when it involves the military. What can explain this inexplicable divergence within conservative thought?

The divergence has happened because many of their core beliefs have been twisted over the years. Conservatives believe in national greatness, American exceptionalism and a strong national defense. These are admirable notions, but they have been completely distorted by political opportunists. Somewhere along the line, the idea of a strong national defense was perverted into a strong national offense. American exceptionalism became an excuse to impose our values upon the whole world through force. National greatness became international greatness through an expansionist empire.

Many illegal, aggressive wars have been waged by the United States in the name of spreading freedom and democracy. We have seen invasions or bombing campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Haiti and many other countries. This is not just a conservative problem, mind you, as these interventions have taken place under Republican and Democratic control. Military adventures have cost billions of dollars and thousands of American lives. What do we have to show for it? Is the world any safer for freedom?

If anything, the world is more chaotic than ever, and that chaos is starting to be felt in the homeland. When a country has a belligerent foreign policy that regularly commits atrocious, and human rights abuses such as torture and the extrajudicial murder of innocents, it eventually spills back onto its own shores. The idea that a government can bulldoze innocent populations with extreme prejudice, but exercise restraint at home is without historical precedent.

Look at what has happened to the country since the War on Terror began. All of the policies that the feds promised were only to be used on the terrorists have been expanded onto the entire population. From the Patriot Act to the NDAA to NSA spying to the DHS villainizing ordinary Americans as terrorists, it is abundantly clear that we are living in a full-blown police state. This police state evolved as the direct result of aggressive, unneeded war-making. Without the wars, the feds would not have had the pretext that they needed to turn the entire Republic into a Constitution-free zone.

Conservatives need to understand that excessive federal power is an unnecessary evil that cannot be tolerated on ANY issue. This does not mean that we need to disband the military. This means follow the law, do not overextend ourselves, and exercise serious caution before beginning a military adventure. We can have a strong military that responds to attacks and threats without getting involved in conflicts that are none of our business.

We offer legislation, the Defend the Guard Act, that would make it more difficult for our troops’ lives to be sacrificed at Obama’s whim. The legislation stops National Guard members, under the jurisdiction of the governor, from being used in unconstitutional military invasions. Nullification usually applies to domestic policy, but this is an exception. The Defend the Guard Act gives activists a way to bring troops home without having to grovel to corrupt federal politicians to do so.

It is a truly conservative viewpoint to stop the squandering of our precious blood and treasure for the reign of one of the most anti-constitutional presidents in our history. Reforming the military is not something that can be put off any longer. It has become a matter of life and death. We must support the troops rather than subjecting them to federal dictates. That begins with defending the guard.

]]>http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/06/war-the-worst-enemy-of-limited-constitutional-government/feed/020298The Indifference of Good Menhttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/11/the-indifference-of-good-men/
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/11/the-indifference-of-good-men/#respondTue, 05 Nov 2013 18:01:35 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=17636The real effects of war are mostly unseen by the American public. We don’t see the bodies dug out of shelled out buildings, or the salvaged of body parts of victims from a car bomb. In fact, I was watching a documentary one day about the realities of war, and my grandmother asked me to change the channel. Her question was, “Why would you want to watch that?”

Now, it was not the repulsive violence in the documentary that caught me off guard. It was something even more insidious.

If you have ever watched the Boondock Saints, you might remember the line, “Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.”

Current mainstream media blares out the war propaganda as sort of hero worship, forbidding questions and running through play-by-play to prove how we are ‘winning out there.’ But often, it’s some anchor safely reporting from their home studio with awesome graphics playing in the background pontificating about the American war machine. Or maybe, just some “Redshirt” pulled off the road surrounded by some sand in the background, commenting of what may be happening far off in the distance. We never see anything. There is no blood. No bullets. No body parts strewn about. No ravaged cities. No harm. No Foul. Just some sand.

While death tolls climb from disease and poor sanitation, we rarely see images showing what happens when armies move on and leave infrastructures completely decimated. No trash pick up. No electricity. No medical supplies in hospitals. No clean water. In fact, about a half of million people have been reported dead in Iraq just from deteriorated conditions and no available medical treatment. In fact, scientific academic collaborators want to create a health board to determine the aftereffects of war.

I just started reading Aftermath: The Remnants of War. It’s a book publish in 1996 by Donovan Webster, and it starts with bomb removal in the late 80’s early 90’s in certain parts of France. They were nowhere close to removing them all. And the bombs are left over from World War I (about a 100 years ago) and World War II (about 70 years ago). Some areas are so bad, that they have been sealed off from the public.

Fast-forward through time and watch Generation Kill. One of the very first scenes captures the shocking remnants left after the Gulf War in 1990, prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

If a picture can say a thousand words, the bloodless war image and military propaganda from American news channels has instilled the wrong perception. It has transformed good men into people indifferent to the atrocities of total, unending, undeclared war

Here’s the funny thing: few rarely have the spine to watch the real affects of war and the aftermath that takes place.

Now, I come from a family very apologetic to government’s justification of war. And I’m a veteran. So is my grandfather. But, like many of you, I have wandered into the land of unapproved opinion. I kinda like it here.

Still, the sad fact is, even as a veteran, or a blogger for the Tenth Amendment Center, my voice in my own home apparently holds little sway. My grandmother is a good woman, but the mainstream media has brainwashed her into accepting that every act an American does on another land is acceptable. To her, it’s perfectly acceptable that rule of law is null and void. The mention of the Constitution or the Geneva Convention never even makes a dent in her argument. Now, I usually just sit at the opposite end of the couch, completely speechless. I’m dumbfounded by the indifference. I’m a deer in headlights.

I mean, seriously, I’m sitting right next to my grandma while she tries to convince me that torture and murder are acceptable side effects of war, and children are considered viable targets – that it’s perfectly fine that the world is a battlefield. But, please change the channel because I don’t want to watch that.

And the lame excuse comes down to the most childish response ever. “That’s what the other side does.” This is the woman who took me to the library every week! Seriously, this is my grandma’s reasoning?!? But, she is one of the indifferent. If you hoped for a clear and concise answer from the indifferent, you are going to be disappointed. When logic can’t enter into an argument…well…I am just not educated enough to debate irrationality.

But now is the time we must must stop being dumbfounded by the indifferent. Even if the indifferent are blood relatives, sitting on the other side of the couch, telling us to stop watching a documentary about an unconstitutional war funded by our tax dollars.

How do we wake the indifferent up from this childish reasoning? We need to start educating each other. Turn the questions around on them. And hopefully, we can turn those news channels off, and be guided by a moral and constitutional reasoning when it comes to war.

Is it Constitutional?

After 9/11 and the invasion of the Afghanistan, federal entities, not entirely all representative, quickly scrambled to start the next invasion. Shortly after, another document was hastily written up, and Iraq was invaded and occupied in 2003.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, Congress relinquished its enumerated power delegated in article 1 section 8 to the executive branch. The initial Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in 2001 states, “That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

The 2001 AUMF was followed by the 2003 AUMF. The 2003 AUMF states, “The president is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to–

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

Now, imagine that. Imagine you are applying for a job. Below the job description, is a list of duties (see article 1 section 8). You say you are going to do these duties by declaring an oath. But, after you have been hired, you create a document to relieve yourself of your duties. The document is not only considered legal, but you still get paid. And you have about a 90 percent chance of keeping your job till retirement age. These are childish dreams made into reality by the indifferent.

Not only was no war declared after an act of war was committed against us, the responsibility of declaring a war was transferred to the president with virtually no limitations. Instead, we looked for a “just war” led by the president. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 25, “We must receive the blow, before we could even prepare to return it.”

However our “enemy” is a terrorist. It is not representative of a people, but is a small radical subset of people using violence to get their political point across. Terrorists are not necessarily defined by geography or signed treaties. In fact, the 9/11 hijackers were not Afghani or Iraqi. Afghanistan, a country consisting of many tribes, not united by any means, was where terrorists based themselves and set up training camps. And yet, Afghanistan was invaded as if the country had declared war on us.

As for Iraq, we only have lies as to why we invaded that country.

The Afghanis nor the Iraqis struck us. These wars are more than just unconstitutional. They are unjust. Instead of bringing a few to justice, we went to war with foreign peoples in an act of blind vengeance.

Have we recognized the laws of nations?

In 2003, the US used a decade old UN Resolution to justify war and an invasion of Iraq. Yet, UN Resolution 1441, was brought to the UN Security Council and even clarified to other countries as a resolution not a means to justify war with Iraq but as a means of peace. Yes, that has to be one of the most contradictory statement ever uttered. A peace resolution was cited to justify war.

The Geneva Convention is observed by many countries, including the US. Still, the president has used the 2001 and 2003 AUMF’s and the NDAA to legitimize indefinite detention even though it is in violation of Article 5 of the Geneva Convention. But that’s not all; enhanced interrogation, or torture, is also in violation of the Geneva Convention in Convention 1 and 3.

In reality, the UN does not authorize the use of force unless it is for self defense. By invading these countries that have not attacked us, the US has not observed the laws of nations, and has even perverted the rule of law to mean whatever it thinks it should mean.

Adhere to the Rule of Law

When one kid suffers a wrong and retaliates, he tends to blame the other kid. “He did it firs!” Adults usually respond, “Two wrongs do not make a right.”

And yet, the eye for an eye tactic is commonly used by adults seeking vengeance.

Vengeance does not seek justice. It inspires more violence. Suicide bombers, an unimaginable concept in Iraq before 2003, now terrorize the country on an almost daily basis, and people are now divided in sectarian violence, wading through trash covered streets, and dying of once preventable diseases.

The vengeance pursued by the executive branch has eroded the war powers, the Geneva Convention, and even international law. It did not spread democracy. We were not greeted in foreign lands with open arms. The blowback continues as the regard for human rights is ignored. And the current status in Iraq will haunt us in the future.

Do not be indifferent to the powers eroded and the rule of laws ignored. Liberty and the defense of a people will always be at risk if indifference persists.

]]>http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/11/the-indifference-of-good-men/feed/017636Pakistan Doesn’t Want US Drone War Anymorehttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/11/pakistan-doesnt-want-us-drone-war-anymore/
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/11/pakistan-doesnt-want-us-drone-war-anymore/#respondFri, 01 Nov 2013 15:02:54 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=17697After nearly a decade of war by drones on the tribal regions of Pakistan, an ally of the US government, that country has now had enough.

This week Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Washington, D.C. calling the drone bombings a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. At nearly the same time, reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are showing the federal government is lying about who exactly is dying in drone wars.

These attacks began with President Bush but have, as many national security policies, swelled under President Obama. An interactive display (which can be viewed here) of recorded drone strikes that has been passed around for months illustrates the evolution of this undeclared war on Pakistan’s innocent men, women, and children. Cries of war crimes and violations of international law are mounting, yet still there is that familiar silence regarding Constitutionality.

How the Founding generation defined “war” is of the utmost importance for understanding how such power was delegated in the Constitution. Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary read “war may be defined as the exercise of violence under sovereign command.”

A war is a war is a war.

So-called limited strikes or police actions are not special exemptions to the Constitutional rule that the war power resides in the Congress. Seeing as Congress has never declared war on Pakistan, this is unconstitutional in the most fundamental sense.

Over 3,500 Pakistanis have died because the Constitution is neglected for the aspirations of both Republican and Democratic administrations. Why should anyone expect those people to react any differently than Americans after 9/11? Just as Americans enlisted in the Armed Forces to fight terrorism, Pakistanis are enlisting to fight US drone terrorism. The same happens in Somalia and Yemen.

The Constitution is viewed as just another enemy by the national security state in Washington, D.C. but can’t an official ally like Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif get the US to listen and stop its illegal bombing?

]]>http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/11/pakistan-doesnt-want-us-drone-war-anymore/feed/017697Defend the Guard, Resist the Empirehttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/10/defend-the-guard-resist-the-empire/
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/10/defend-the-guard-resist-the-empire/#commentsFri, 25 Oct 2013 02:01:09 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=17323It is very easy to get sick and tired of American foreign policy these days.

Since 9/11, America has been drawn into a countless number of foreign wars with nothing to show for it other than disastrous results. Troop suicides stand at an all-time high, the economy is in the tank, the Middle East is completely on fire with Islamic radicalism running wild, and our precious freedoms are being eroded because of it. This is a truly dire situation that shows no signs of slowing down.

In lieu of what is going on, the question we must ask ourselves is: how do we stop this? We’ve seen large scale demonstrations and mass protests to end some of these wars, and it has not done anything to change the path America is going down. The federal government is so corrupt that they refuse to listen to the will of the people. These unfortunate circumstances make it clear that we need to move at the state level, as Thomas Jefferson suggested, through nullification.

To that end, the Tenth Amendment Center has crafted model legislation called the Defend The Guard Act to help citizens fight back and protect our nation’s veterans.

The Defend the Guard Act has been designed to nullify federal overreach into the use of a State’s National Guard Troops. We DO NOT intend to make America weaker with this act. On the contrary, we do not want our heroes to sacrifice in vain. The Defend the Guard Act protects your state’s National Guard from being used in unconstitutional wars and other needless, superfluous entanglements.

Nothing else has worked to stop the federal juggernaut. They refuse to respect our veterans and continuously send them around the world to participate in squabbles that our country does not belong in. The Defend the Guard Act can slow down the federal government’s warmongering because 28 percent of deployments come from the National Guard. That means we can stop a great deal of their mischief through state action. Take the Defend The Guard Act to your state legislature immediately to put a wrench into the federal government’s illegal war machine!